Category Archives: creighton

RECAP: I’ve been sitting here staring at a blank page for a bit now thinking about whether I have anything to say about St John’s 82-68 loss to the Creighton Blue Jays on the last Tuesday in February and the answer is no, because the game was from beginning to end lackluster: neither team played particularly well but neither was so atrocious as to be noteworthy; none of the performances were particularly compelling – some guy on Creighton nearly triple doubled and it was barely noticeable; and except for a brief appearance by Wally Szcerbiak’s terrifying eyebrows at halftime the broadcast was to charitable mundane. But one thing I’ve learned over the years about staring at the blank page is that it’s a waste of time: you don’t get paid until you’ve finished typing and you can’t finish typing until you start, this paragraph being an object lesson: it’s not very good but it’s good enough and now there’s only 1200 words to go

St John’s was down 11-0 five minutes in and it looked like it was going to be a very long night but they regrouped after a Mullin time out and got to within two points about five minutes later. Unfortunately the half lasted another eight minutes during which time Creighton outscored St John’s by 11, which was about all she wrote. St John’s got within five midway through the second half behind eight straight points from Malik Ellison but a rapid regression to bad shots, dumb turnovers and atrocious free throw shooting ended any hopes of an upset … St John’s shot 40 percent from the floor, 25 percent from three and were 8-17 from the free throw line – where meanwhile Creighton was 18-22, which if you add their 18 makes to St John’s nine misses that’s a lot to overcome for as team that’s having a hard time finding the basket; add to that that St John’s was minus 11 on the boards and turned the ball over 15 times and that they only lost by 14 seems almost like something of a victory. It’s not a victory obviously, moral or otherwise, but no one in their right mind would have expected St John’s to win in Omaha on Senior Night and had they lost by 30 and given up a hundred no one would have been surprised and at this point in the season and the process you have to take your silver lining where you find it … One game left versus Providence at the Garden and if all goes well the regular season will end with another bad loss for the Friars that send them and Ed Cooley’s diseased head to the NIT. As things stand now and I don’t think it can change St John’s gets Georgetown in the first round of the BET and then if they manage to not bollix that gift up Villanova, but silver lining again it’s better to lose to the number three team in the country in the feature game on national television than it is to Xavier or whoever in front of 17 people Friday afternoon.

PLAYERS: Malik Ellison had a career minute and a half midway through the second half: he scored eight straight points during a brief flurry where St John’s cut the lead to five. Unfortunately in the other 24 minutes he played Malik scored one point and committed four fouls and three turnovers … Ponds had 16 points and six steals and if he’s not the BE rookie of the year then something’s very very wrong because he’s as polished as any St John’s freshmen I can recall and that includes the current head coach … A dull effort from Lovett: eight points, four rebounds, three assists and oh fer from three … Mussini had nine points and five rebounds in 24 minutes but missed a three after Ellison’s flurry that put the kibosh on St John’s chances. Yes, that was a gratuitous shot, I do it on purpose … Don’t look now but Amar Alibagwitz put together his second strong effort in a row: he made a three, euro-stepped to the basket without travelling and threw a nifty back door pass that resulted in a layup by Heydrich Freudenburch – the German’s 11th basket of the year – a series of events so incongruous as to comprise evidence for intelligent design. Plus he had six rebounds. Plus he’s from Italy! Be still my heart … On the other side of the coin is Bashir Ahmed, who had his second poor effort in a row: three for 11 from the floor and four turnovers, although to his credit seven rebounds and a couple of blocks … Yakwe (seven points, two rebounds) once again caught the ball and finished with authority. Considering how bad he looked early in the season – and there were a couple of times where I thought to give up on him – he seems to have found himself. It’s not showing up in the box score but if he were a stock I’d be buying … Williams had six points and five rebounds in 16 minutes. I don’t know if anyone other than me noticed – certainly the otherwise omniscient referees didn’t – but after a made Creighton basket he inbounded the ball without coming close to having either foot out of bounds. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things but emblematic of the sort of boneheaded mistakes I would be happy to see not repeated next year, when things get real

NOTES: Good ole missus fun had the line of the night when she heard Pete Gillen’s mellifluous voice during the pregame: “He sounds like some moron from Queens” she said. I set her right of course, informing her that (a) he’s some moron from Brooklyn and (b) that he’s not a moron, he’s just the sort of X and O guru that Chris Mullin needs beside him on the bench to help him understand basketball. (Funny we don’t hear so much about the need for an X and O guru anymore.) Gillen’s booth mate was called Carter Blackburn, which sounds the name of the long lost father of Krystle Carrington’s evil twin’s secret love child on Dynasty but who is in fact a graduate of Syracuse University whose claim to fame is calling Little League games on ESPN … Predictably I got a couple of emails after Saturday’s post complaining that I was complaining about complaints and that therefore I was by my own reasoning a cunt. (They didn’t say cunt, I just said that because missus fun found my use of the word offensive so I had to say it again.) To those correspondents I say: if you needed a syllogism to prove that I’m a cunt you must be new here … There’s now just one game left in the season and as the end draws near I feel like a skinny Kenyan within sight of the finish line in the NY marathon. Assuming a normal distribution of wins and losses there’s just a couple of these things left for us to slog through – yes us, you and I, we’re in this together – and then blessedly the season will end, depending of course on what happens on the Ides, March 15th, which is the day the CBI bids come out. I’d say if I’m Mullin I accept that bid except that if I were Mullin he’d have drank himself out of the NBA in 1987 and today he’d be working at UPS with Lenny Cooke and due to the butterfly effect St John’s coach John Calipari would this year be seeking to defend his third straight national championship. Thanks AA. But yes, take the bid: the more they play together this year the better they’ll play together next year and anyway you can’t use lack of experience as an excuse for failure and then eschew opportunities for experience … So anyway, as usually happens this far into the season I’ve exhausted pretty much everything there is to say and have my head so far up my own ass that not having anything to write about becomes something to write about. For this recap I investigated a couple of things, all of which came to naught. Today for example would have been February 29th if it were a leap year, which might have been a topic, but it’s not a leap year and anyway the Wikipedia page about leap year is so dry that I mistook it for my first wife’s vagina. I mean look at this:

“The Republican calendar’s intercalary month was inserted on the first or second day after the Terminalia (a. d. VII Kal. Mar., February 23). The remaining days of Februarius were dropped. This intercalary month, named Intercalaris or Mercedonius, contained 27 days.”

Jesus shoot me. But all was not lost: that leap year was not happening meant that March came in like a lion one day sooner that it might have otherwise. The bad news is that the origin of the idiom March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb is as deadly dull as explications of leap year. To the extent that anyone knows it seems that the constellation Leo (the Lion) is descending the sky as the constellation Aries (the Ram) is ascending. Personally I thought it had to do with the weather, because the beginning of March is cold and the end less so. So there’s no there there. Today is also Mardi Gras (literally Fat Tuesday), the day before Ash Wednesday, which marks the period in the Christian calendar before Easter – the 40 days are meant to simulate the 40 days Jesus spent wandering the desert culminating in His temptation by Lucifer. Which might be something except I already did that, in 2015. (No, I don’t think I’m wasting my life, thanks for asking.) The only interesting thing I read today about Fat Tuesday is that it’s celebrated around the world by the eating of pancakes: evidently the tradition started because fasting necessitated that the Christian faithful use up their butter and other perishables before beginning their period of abstemiousness. This might have tied in nicely to the essay I wrote a couple of week’s ago about Canucklehead fascination with maple syrup and had the season been two or three weeks longer I might have had to produce 1000 words about that but it’s not, so I didn’t. Consider us lucky.

GAME: After watching the interminable end of Wednesday night’s Butler upset of Villanova complete with court-storming and post-game interviews I thought to myself, self, if Saint John’s upsets Creighton tonight at Carnesecca Arena they’ll be in sole possession of first place in the Big East since I can’t be arsed to look it up. Which not looking it up is just as well because Saint John’s did not upset Creighton at Carnesecca Arena, instead they lost 85-72. That they did was entirely predictable because this was let’s face it a bad matchup: Creighton starts three upperclassmen, one of them a point guard senior that’s as quick as either of our freshmen and three times as fast as any of our sophomores; they have a dominating big man – Patton looked like a lottery pick Wednesday night although some of that was undoubtedly the competition and some of it was that the referees allowed him to stand around in the lane long enough to grow roots; and head coach Doug McDermott’s father is smart enough to take advantage of those advantages, which he did by forcing the pace on offense and packing it in on defense. You couldn’t create a team in the laboratory that was better designed to kick our teeth in. And yet the good news is that Saint John’s – and I don’t want to sound like a Pollyanna here but – didn’t give up. There were a bunch of times they could have thrown in the towel like they did last year when they lost to Creighton by 40 on the road and instead they came back from an 18 point halftime deficit thanks to yet another amazing display of halftime adjustments by coaches Mullin and Saint Jean and cut it to ten a bunch of times where it seemed like they were just one big play or one lucky one away from making it a ballgame. But then one of Creighton’s upperclassmen would make a play or one of our cretin underclassmen wouldn’t and it’d be back to 14. Oh well … There’s no point in rehashing the game when a picture’s worth a thousand words, even a thousand of mine:

For those of you scoring at home Saint John’s is the red line. Similarly pointless is examination of the box score: CU shot 52 percent, SJU shot 40 percent; Saint John’s was 7-22 from three; rebounds were even at 40; turnovers were even at eight. The only vaguely interesting thing about the numbers is free throws: Saint John’s did not shoot a single free throw until 13:29 in the second half – by then Creighton had shot ten. In the next three minutes someone called Toby Hegner – who prior to that had played immaculate defense – committed three fouls in 2 minutes; in the next 10 minutes Justin Patton committed a foul every 2 minutes and fouled out. It was as if suddenly the heavens opened above the parted Red Sea and the whistles multiplied like loaves and fishes. What really happened is that SJU started attacking the basket a little more aggressively and the referees started calling things a little more aggressively because things were starting to get a little chippy. Of course probably things wouldn’t have started to get chippy if the refs had called things a little more squarely early on. Which is not to blame them for the loss because that would be a pussy move and Creighton is a much better team than we are but noticing it is something else altogether, especially when you have 2000 words to write.

PLAYERS: Lovett played 38 minutes and led Saint John’s with 23 points, including 4 of 5 from three … Tariq Owens had 12 points and five rebounds – four of his field goals came on face-up 15 foot jump shots which if that wasn’t an aberration that could be huge moving forward … Ponds had 17 points and five rebounds. Got T’ed up as part of a double technical late in the second half while the players were jostling for position on an inbounds play under the basket. Seems out of character … Ahmed had six points and seven rebounds. The refs did him no favors by ignoring contact on his drives to the basket – he shot three free throws in a game where he was the victim of six misdemeanors … Ellison had seven of Saint John’s 12 assists and also five rebounds but was 3 of 10 from the floor and one of six from three. Perhaps if he thought less about shooting he could spend more time concentrating on not passing the ball to the pep band … Darien Williams had four rebounds and no points but only played 12 minutes …. Yawke had one rebound in only ten minutes and bungled a bunch of chances under the basket. Seems to have reverted to November Yawke whereas I preferred December Yawke … Alibegowitz finally made a layup using that stupid eurostep he tries at least once a game and afterwards stood under the basket pounding his chest and howling at the crowd like he’d just scored the winning touchdown in the Super bowl in overtime. Whereas in fact he’d just drawn his .500 team – which has won three league games since March 2015 – within 13 points in what would prove to be a losing effort. Which is about like one of Napoleon’s infantryman pounding his chest over the corpse of a dead Russian peasant during the retreat from Moscow … A halfhearted cheer from the crowd greeted the long awaited return of Federico Missini from the mysterious infection that had sidelined him during Saint John’s three game winning streak. I note without postulating causation that his return coincided with that streak’s end. Missini made two threes, one to draw Saint John’s within 18 at the end of the first half and one to draw Saint John’s to within 19 at the beginning of the second half, so it’s good to know he hasn’t lost his ability to drain clutch shots. In my favorite sequence late in the second half he missed a three early in the shot clock that would have drawn SJU with seven, then turned the ball over on the break after a Creighton miss and then fouled the Creighton player who ended up with the ball, making him singlehandedly responsible for a seven-point turnaround. Those of you who continue to write accusing me of acting uncharitably towards Missini because he is slow, weak, and cannot cover or jump over a brick will be happy to hear that I ascribe that display of incompetence to rust.

NOTES: Once again not too much here. I went back and looked at what I wrote about Creighton over the past several years and the most interesting thing was a bit about Kelly Cuoco’s ass and that I only wrote so I could stick her picture at the top of the post in an attempt to tempt to my blog readers who cannot otherwise locate pictures of near naked broads on the internet. The rest of it was about how Nebraska is a big flat pile of nothing, behind which every word I stand – much like I’d like to stand behind Kelly Cuoco, or at least kneel – but there’s no need repeating it …. Breaking news from North Carolina: DooK Coach Mike Krswshrehy – who injured his back after falling from the top of a clock where he had taken refuge from the farmer’s wife – will undergo back surgery and miss up to a month of the season. Upon hearing the tragic news the NCAA immediately sprang into action and announced that Skrewshnski’s absence will be factored into Dewk’s seeding in the NCAA tournament because of course it will. Oddly I don’t remember any similar announcement when Jim Calhoun or Jim Boeheim missed parts of their seasons recuperating from cancer – and Calhoun is at this point more tumor than healthy tissue; and if missing time recuperating from surgery is a qualification for the NCAA grading on a curve our own Steve Lavin should be awarded a retroactive national championship. Meanwhile there’s been no action by the NCAA regarding allegations that no athlete at the University of North Carolina has attended a single class since Saint John’s own Frank McGuire headed the program. Don’t worry though the Thomas More College women’s basketball program is still on probation and facing the death penalty. And finally the repulsive Grayson Allen returned to action last night after an “indefinite suspension” which turned out to be one game because of course it did. Allen you may recall attempted to cripple a player from mighty Elon College in a meaningless preseason game a couple of weeks ago and was disciplined because there are more important things than winning. That this is happening in North Carolina a state the NCAA punished for passing a discriminatory law mandating that men should use bathrooms designed for humans with penises I find highly amusing, but not for the reasons you might think …

RECAP: Saint John’s lost its fourth straight game New Year’s Eve, 80-70 to Creighton University at Carnesecca Arena. It was a game you’d like to win oh well but as a spectacle it was pretty entertaining and with this team as currently comprised entertaining is about all you can hope for … Essentially, Creighton went up ten midway through the first half and stayed there. Sure, it went to seven or twelve and whoever you were rooting for you said okay, this is it, a blow out or a comeback, but the scales never tipped. Every time Saint John’s threatened to make a game of it someone would bounce the ball off their foot and Creighton would hit a three and it would be 11 again. That went on for a while and I would have hit the FF button except I have a very strong constitution … Saint John’s was troubled by a quick guard and had no answer for Geoffrey Groselle, who sounds like Chaucer character but is actually some golem from Texas in the Kent Benson/Joe Kleine mold, meaning that he’ll have a nice career as a car salesman in Houston after a few years playing overseas. Despite that and as bad as SJ played, the numbers were even. Both teams shot ~ 40 percent from the floor and 30 percent from three; both had 39 rebounds and 13 assists; TOs and blocks were even. Free throws though were 30 to 20 and the score differential was 10. Coincidence? You make the call. Beside the differential Creighton was in the bonus early in both halves, which slowed the game to their benefit. It seemed to me that the refs were not calling the body, which accrued to the benefit to the uncoordinated Midwest lummoxes. Not that it would have made any difference, SJ shot 62 percent from the FT line and that includes three guys who went 10 for 10 out of 19 total … I was impressed by the coach, Doug McDermott’s father. I wouldn’t say that he coached Mullin’s balls off but he’s a clever son of a bitch and on a level playing field will win you a couple of games. Last year he played the triangle and two versus SJ and it flummoxed Lavin for about 20 minutes. Anyway, getting Mullin to coach these guys is like getting Werner von Braun to tune up your Volkswagon. If Knute Rockne were the coach it wouldn’t make any difference, they just don’t have the horses. They do though have the foals

PLAYERS: Malik Ellison led the team in scoring with 17 points, including 6 for 6 from the free throw line and a Sports Center put-back. But his entry into the game in both halves coincided with Creighton runs. I didn’t write it down in the first half but in the second Saint John’s was down seven when Ellison entered at 14:50 and was down 12 – the biggest deficit of the game – with eight minutes left. It did not seem to me that his play led directly to the deficit, but if it were merely his presence that would mean he is a Jonah, which is worse, because bad juju does not go away … Johnson (14 pts, 4 rb, 2 steals, 2 blocks) kept them in it in the first half. In one remarkable sequence he dove to the floor, wrestled the ball away from a Creighton player and threw a pass over his head to ignite a fast break. Which is a nice effort from a lazy player … Great white hope Federico Mussini was 1 for 5 from three. He’s now 1-12 in his last two and 10 for 51 since Syracuse. And no Lovett on the horizon … Sima had 13 points and 5 rebounds but generally got punked by the white guy, which should not happen. Got T’ed up when he hung on the rim to quash a SJU run … Chris Jones had nine rebounds in 15 minutes … Balamou reminds me of what Dom Pointer looked like as a junior when they used to clear it out for him and say make a play. It’s not quite basketball but it’s entertaining nonetheless. And anyway unfortunately Balamou is a senior … Speaking of seniors – high school seniors – Yawke, who should be one, had 9 points, 4 rebounds and 3 blocks in his first BE game … Mvouika and Jessica Albavicowitz were non factors.

NOTES: This blog is hosted by Word Press, which recently added a feature allowing owners to see the search terms by which users locate their website on the vast internets. As you might expect, some people were searching for this site specifically, using appropriate terms

bigeastboards

big east boards

the dead storm st. john’s

www.bigeastboards.com

And so on.

Others were looking for general information on SJU basketball. People were directed here seeking information on

does jamal branch have any eligibility left (No thank goodness)

where is rico hines coaching (who cares)

will steve lavin. be fired at sju (my sources say yes)

what ever happened to heath orvis basketball (Heath who?)

does jim burr have anything against st. john’s (no, he had something against basketball)

Others were fans looking for answers to burning questions like

why does ed cooley`s head look fucked up?

And then there were the haters

marquette basketball + fuck wojo

duck fuke

and the curious

greg anthony transgender

bing crosby castration

bing crosby cut off balls

And then there was this guy, I’m not sure what he was looking for but I hope he finds it

raylan givens gets spanked

A reader writes to ask: Fun, this is comedy gold, but wtf does it have to do with today’s Creighton game. Well reader, after a loss last year to Creighton that dropped SJU to 2-5 in the BE and signified to me the end of the SJU season I wrote an essay that described Nebraska as “a big flat pile of nothing” and “other than South Dakota perhaps the stupidest state in the union.” To which essay an angry Cornhusker replied pointing out the many virtues of his state and the many prominent Nebraska-breds who have made contributions to American culture, up to and including Kelly Cuoco, a piece of milk fed veal whose picture adorned the recap

The appearance of that one photo has driven the following traffic here from perverts searching for

RECAP: Let’s start with a professional journalistic lede: Saint John’s beat the piss out of Creighton in a laugher at MSG Saturday afternoon 84-64. (Okay, semi-professional.) We start that way because these recaps – and by these I mean the ones after a rare Saint John’s blow out – are the most difficult to produce. Bad losses are easy because I can go straight to the mockery without saying something nice about anyone or anything, which let’s face it is right in my wheelhouse. Close games – win or lose – have their own dynamic: they are by their very nature inherently interesting and the drama provides grist for the writing mill. Blow out wins though are a different matter. On the one hand I can’t be immediately and unremittingly negative – which is my instinct – but on the other I want to avoid being too positive about anything and especially about Saint John’s, whose failures over the years have in many ways shaped my bitterness and made me the curmudgeon I am today. But I have to say something nice, so here goes. Saint John’s came out ready to play for a change. They got Creighton down early and kept them there. They scored 50 points in the first half – the first 50 point half this year and the first I can remember in a while – and took a 20 point lead into the locker room. They did not as I feared they might let up in the second half. Instead they maintained their intensity and coasted to victory. To the extent that I’m capable of happiness that doesn’t involve other people’s misery I’m happy for the players, because they probably needed a win like this. It’s just unfortunate that in the long run this game is probably meaningless, because all they accomplished was avoiding a sweep by the worst team in the conference … For their part Creighton was atrocious. They didn’t score a field goal until the 14 minute mark and even after that they sucked: they shot a storm-esque 35 percent from the floor, 20 percent from 3 and 50 percent from the free throw line. As opposed to SJU, which had one of those anomalous games where nearly everything they threw up went in: 56 percent from the floor, 57 percent from 3 and 85 percent from the free throw line. Unfortunately what this game highlights is just how bad the loss to Creighton two weeks ago was. Stealing a road game there would have been huge and might have made all the difference in what is now for all intents a lost season; instead the loss was devastating, which made this one something of an afterthought … One of the boons of a performance like this is that it takes Steve Lavin out of the equation completely, because there’s nothing for him to cock up: there’s no opportunity for his ridiculous substitution patterns to affect the outcome of the game; his absurd use of time outs is not a factor; and his inability to spell either X or O does not detract from his team’s performance. He even dressed appropriately. So there’s really nothing to complain about. I mean sure, there’s no doubt that he’ll say something moronic in the post-game press conference and no doubt he’ll tweet some bullshit inanities later on that would make a teenage girl blush, but I don’t have time to wait around for that. I have a deadline to meet and besides the early start means I’ve been drinking since noon. So this game Lavin gets a pass. Congratulations Steve … Once again the refs let them play, which I’ve noticed this before about Pat Driscoll’s crew. Had they been reffing the Butler game they’d probably have called a charge on Tyler Wideman for running into Chris Obekpa’s elbow. Whereas this game they called nothing. Although this plays into Saint John’s hands in the short term it does not bode well for post season play – whether in the NIT or CBI – where history indicates the games will be called more closely, and Saint John’s depth will certainly be a factor … Up next DePaul at home, which in November everyone would have said was a gimme. To the extent that Saint John’s has a chance of sneaking into the NCAA tournament play in game this is now a must win, especially considering the spate of games that come after. Because despite winning two of their last three Saint John’s has lost 7 of their last 11 and remains in 7th place at 4 and 6 in conference and this after playing the soft part of their schedule: they have remaining Georgetown twice, Xavier twice, Villanova, and Marquette on the road out of state, where they do not play well. To say that I am not optimistic would be an understatement. And redundant.

PLAYERS: While Chris Obekpa seems committed to playing himself out of the NBA draft, a newly energized Rysheed Jordan seems suddenly interested in playing himself into it. He had a career high 25 points – he was 9 of 12 from the floor and 6 for 8 from three – to go along with 6 rebounds and 4 assists … Harrison seemed like his old self: 21 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists … Pointer continued his fine play: 10 points, 7 rebounds and 8 blocks, only one of which was an obvious and uncalled goal tending. Last game I omitted from my recap a sentence from my notes that referenced Pointer’s new Buckwheat hairdo, on the theory that it might be construed as racist. I mention it now because it would be racist not to. Re his play it would be interesting to know what his field goal percentage would be if he every once in a while set his feet and went up straight for a shot, as opposed to launching himself backwards at a 30 degree angle. Late in the second half he replicated his now legendary flop versus Butler by once again throwing himself to the ground and rolling around on the floor: it looked like he was auditioning for the role of a corpse on CSI-MSG. And oh yeah I almost forgot, he had his pants pulled down late in the game and was revealed to be wearing what appeared to be a pair of Spanx. Not that there’s anything wrong with that … Shout out to MVPoster WeAreSJU for predicting that Felix Balamou would start at center. Although he only had 5 points on 2 of 10 shooting he displayed welcome energy, which bodes well for next year, when he will be thrust into yeoman’s minutes by default, Lavin’s. Among his fine plays was a nifty pass that led to a basket by Amir Amirovonitov, which is a circumlocution that Saint John’s fans had better get used to now, because they’ll be hearing a lot of it next year. For his part Jessica had 7 points on 3 of 4 shooting, one of those a three that led to a rousing cheer by members of the red and white club, always on the lookout for the next great white hope … Phil Greene had 13 points and it only took him 10 shots to get them. (By way of contrast Harrison had 21 points on 8 shots and Jordan 25 on 12.) Greene displayed his WNBA handle in the second half when he attempted to cross over some lumbering white guy, tripped over himself and dribbled the ball out of bounds off his own face . LOL at Phil Greene, he stinks … Chris Obekpa was not in the starting line-up, his punishment for attempting to murder a Butler player a week ago. Saint John’s blistering start allowed Lavin the luxury of keeping him out the entire first half, which had the added benefit of allowing Lavin to portray himself as a strict disciplinarian to whom there are more important things than winning. I guarantee though that had things gone south early Obekpa would have been the first player in off the bench. A camera caught Obekpa sitting on the bench yawning during the first half, which is a sure sign he was taking his punishment seriously. I was worried that his entry into the game might be greeted by a round of applause, but credit the audience for not reacting at all – it may be that now that NY has returned to an urban dystopia after three terms by the repulsive Mike Bloomberg after the relative tranquility of the Giuliani years that so many of the SJU faithful have been mugged that even they have sympathy for the victims of violent crime. Ever the warrior Obekpa took himself out of the game when he daintily twisted his ankle on a rebound and did not return. His status remains day-to-felony .. Jamal Branch’s stat line in 14 minutes: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 … Despite the lopsided score five walk-ons played only six minutes between them. It seems like it would have been a good game to get them some playing time, but Lavin left his starters in until the 19 minute mark in the second half. All I can figure is that he got confused and though this was like college football, where running the score up against last place teams impresses the voters.

NOTES: After the last Creighton game I was so disgusted that I skipped the notes section entirely except to note that Nebraska sucks ass and was among the worst states in the US, rivaled only by South Dakota and perhaps Massachusetts, which is a complete left wing shit hole. I received in response an angry email from a Creighton fan noting the important role Nebraska had played in US history and the long list of Nebraska-breds who have made contributions to the American culture: Crazy Horse, who engineered Custer’s defeat at Little Big Horn; Red Cloud, chief of the Oglala Sioux; William Jennings Bryant, three time presidential candidate and prosecuting attorney at the Scopes trial; Vice president Dick Cheney, who protected the US from attack post 9-11; President Gerald Ford, who pardoned Richard Nixon; Buffalo Bill Cody; actors Fred Astaire, Marlon Brando, James Coburn, Henry Fonda and Nick Nolte; Johnny Carson; Paul Revere of Paul Reverend the Raiders, author of the immortal Indian Reservation; the smug pseudo-intellectual buffoon Dick Cavett; the brilliant writer Raymond Chandler, about whom even I cannot find something bad to say, those of you who are not illiterate should read him; the religious charlatan L Ron Hubbard, an alcoholic who created a religion based upon the belief that humanity is descended for reptilian aliens; and athletes Grover Cleveland Alexander (another drunk), Wade Boggs (a chicken obsessed adulterer), Bob Gibson (a misanthropic asthmatic) and Gale Sayers (gets a pass as the best friend of Brian). He even mentioned Penny from the Big Bang Theory, played by the bodacious Kelley Cuoco, who god bless her juicy ass had the good sense to be born in California. To that reader I say: fuck Nebraska and fuck you. Nebraska sucks and stop emailing me: if I wanted a pen pal I’d proposition prison inmates. Still, for your efforts:

GAME: I asked following the loss on Sunday whether Saint John’s was playing up to dewk or dook was playing down to Saint John’s. That question was answered Wednesday night in Omaha Nebraska with Saint John’s 77-74 loss to winless last place Creighton. Because the team that played dook to draw, and Gonzaga to a draw, and beat Syracuse at the Carrier Dome, that team was snowed in on Long Island. The team that flew to Omaha two days early was the one that squeaked by Saint Mary’s and lost to Butler at home. In the pregame the dynamic Ben Howland – and if I’m oompa loompa Chris Monasch I’ve already made preliminary inquiries in that direction – said that the Saint John’s players knew that this was a must win and predicted that they’d come out with a sense of urgency. Whereas that happened not so much. Because this team – other than Pointer and Harrison, both whom of are foxhole material – displayed all the resistance of a 5 dollar whore in a Bangkok brothel. They are the perfect reflection of their airhead coach, who’s quite willing to state publicly that he doesn’t much care whether he wins games or loses them. They may even be a reflection of the times in which we live, where hashtags and placards like #saveourgirls and #jesuischarlie are considered acts of courage that display the righteousness of their authors without exposing them to the sort of real world consequences that might accrue should they be moved to actually get off the couch. If that’s the case it may be that we already won these games back in October, when the players who rolled over last night were festooning their tweets with #unfinishedbusiness and #hammertorock hashtags … Speaking of couches, I was sitting on mine at about 11:30 last night, having watched yet another college basketball season swirl down the toilet and scribbling notes on a legal pad by the light from the television refracting through the dregs of a glass of Crispin Cain Low Gap Clear Wheat Whiskey when I thought to myself: what the hell are you doing? How many ways can you describe a lump of shit? It’s brown and smells and feels like day old mashed potatoes. The rest of it is just ego and purple prose, signifying nothing. But then I remembered that we’re just meaningless carbon based life forms hurtling through an infinite and godless universe on a rock and I had to do something while sitting around waiting to die so why not drink and mock Lavin. Existential crisis passed … To the extent that the game itself deserves mention, it was awful. I had not seen Creighton yet this year but if last night was any indication they stink. Fortunately Saint John’s obliged them by being worse. Oddly though, Saint John’s outperformed Creighton in nearly every statistical category: the two teams shot the same percentage from the floor (41); Saint John’s shot 55 percent from three, to CU’s 40; SJU outrebounds Creighton 40 to 34; more assists, 19 to 17; more steals, 6 to 2; more blocks, 6 to 5. The only significant difference was at the free throw line, where Creighton shot 85 percent (18 of 21) to SJU’s 60 percent (10 of 17). Regular readers will recall mention of Saint John’s exemplary free throw defense earlier in the season, how it was responsible for several wins and how it was fool’s gold that would come back to bite them in the ass at some point. Teeth meet sphincter … Coaching wise Lavin was not any more awful than usual. Specifically there were some peculiar time-outs, at least one of which stopped a SJU rally dead in its tracks. I can’t really blame him for not preparing his team for the ridiculous triangle and two that Greg McDermott used to flummox Saint John’s for the first ten minutes, except to the extent that he doesn’t prepare his team for anything. And I’m not even going to mention his stupid get up. If his dress is a cry for attention I’m not giving him any more …So Saint John’s remains in 8th place, having dropped 6 of their last 8 – and this is against the palookas on their schedule. On the one hand it’s still early: there are 12 conference games left and anything can happen. Ten and two puts them at the top of the conference and at 20 wins, three of those against top 20 teams. But on the other hand when anything happens to Saint John’s usually it’s bad and anyone who thinks this team is going to rip off 10 or 12 wins in a row is out of their gourd. Thank goodness February is upon us or I might be worried.

PLAYERS: D’Angelo Russell Harrison had a quiet first half but singlehandedly kept them in it at the end, including several off balance and acrobatic threes, one of which clanked off the back rim at the buzzer. Obviously four for 18 is not ideal, but nothing about this BB team is … Here’s something I’ve never said before and will likely never say again: Jamal Branch displayed skill at playing basketball. It was his play at the beginning of the second half- he started for Jordan, who allegedly “sprained” his “knee” – that fueled SJ’s comeback from a 10-point deficit. Colormoron Bob Wenzel twice described Branch as a “cerebral” player – unless he doesn’t know that the world “cerebral” means or meant that Branch plays like someone suffering from a brain injury I’m at a loss as to what he was talking about. To prove my point Branch committed 5 personals and fouled out in 28 minutes, nearly all of those by grabbing at a player that had run past him 40 feet from the basket … Pointer double doubled and added 6 assists. Made the play of the game when he saved an errant rebound by throwing the ball off a Creighton player’s face … Obekpa has 7 points and 8 rebounds and displayed nice form on his jump shot. You have to figure that the more he plays the more his draft stock drops. Last night he got pushed around by a bunch of hayseed lummoxes. Imagine what’ll be like in the D League. Managed to get a three second call 47 seconds into the game, which seems almost like a mathematical impossibility … Jessica Albivecovich played nearly 20 minutes off the bench and once again was not completely inept. Made a huge 2 pointer jump shot on a long rebound with three seconds left in regulation, which would have been amazing has Creighton not been up three … With Saint John’s down 4 and only 25 seconds remaining in the game, Phil Greene spent 13 seconds dribbling around outside the three point line looking for a shot to take. Lol at Phil Greene. He’s stinks

NOTES: Don’t have any. Nebraska is a big flat pile of nothing. Other than South Dakota it might be the stupidest state in the union. I don’t know what a cornhusker is and can’t be arsed to look it up. Other than Benoit Benjamin I think they probably haven’t had a college player I’ve heard of: what the hell is a Kyle Korver and who cares. Bob Gibson went to Creighton: he was HOF pitcher and played for the Harlem Globetrotters; that would be fodder for a paragraph if I were in the mood to write a paragraph. I’m not. I like birds but blue jays suck. I already did a bit about what a dope Bob Wenzel is and how he drinks too much. More would be thin gruel from which I’ll spare you. During the pregame there was a Saturday morning cartoon version of Lavin talking about how much he likes going to the movies and eating popcorn. Tempting. Can you imagine sitting for three hours behind that bulbous head listening to him cackle at Adam Sandler? Because you know he loves Adam Sandler. Anyone doubt he owns Happy Gilmore on Blue Ray? I don’t. But fuck all that, I’m not in the mood … Okay, one note: on Saint John’s fan boards this morning even Lavin’s lickspittles and toadies are deserting the sunken ship, i.e., posters saying oh well I was a Lavin supporter up to now but after this loss it’s clear that this isn’t working and even I can’t support him. The translation of that is: Until I got hit between the eyes by that Omaha 2 x 4 I didn’t realize what a buffoon Lavin is, but now even someone as stupid as I am has seen the light. The answer should be: if it took you this long to see something so plainly obvious, why should anyone care what you think now. Shut up and eat your shit sandwiches and choke them down with the dregs of your Kool-aid. I could not care less.